


the trick of the light; a shot in the dark

by biochemprincess



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Post-Chinatown, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 19:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15978584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: Her expectations are in need of some good calibration, but there are no points for the curve to start, to bend, to end. She is a white canvas now, a former masterpiece ripped and torn, stripped from its paint, with the colours dripping down the drain.The original glory, the backbone of her life, it's a lie and she'll never get any of it back.





	the trick of the light; a shot in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> "give me time travel and i'm yours" - and that's the story of how i binged timeless. find me here now where i get to write more self-indulgent time travelling fics.
> 
> title from the lyrics of 'hell or high water' by passenger

"Lucy, no offense, really, but I need some space to figure this one out and you hovering around me isn't helping." Jiya's tone is gentle, but final and Lucy does take a step back. The three years she's spent in the past are showing and she can't fault her for it.

Jiya's right, of course. She's a historian, _their historian_ , not some computer prodigy with various degrees in physics and quantum mechanics and other assorted time travel stuff. She's the historian and right now she isn't needed.

Their one, primary goal is to get Rufus back, bring him back to life as soon and as safely as possible. And there's absolutely nothing for her to do right now. Her future self has brought the equations needed for the whole affair, before leaving again so quickly she was getting whiplash, more tight-lipped than she'd ever expected herself to be.

Not that Lucy had ever expected to meet a future - or past - version of herself. But then she has had to readjust her expectations of basically everything during recent months.

Her expectations are in need of some good calibration, but there are no points for the curve to start, to bend, to end.

She is a white canvas now, a former masterpiece ripped and torn, stripped from its paint, with the colours dripping down the drain.

The original glory, the backbone of her life, it's a lie and she'll never get any of it back. Rittenhouse, Emma, they have taken everything from her. Her sister, her mother, her life, Rufus; even her humanity.

At this point fighting them is muscle memory, an instinct as intrinsic as breathing. But she isn't fighting for a specific cause anymore, she's fighting because it is the absence of dying.

At this point _winning_ the war is just as frightening to her as losing it.

Lucy wanders through the bunker halls without aim. It's cold and even emptier than usual if such a thing is possible at all. Wyatt has locked himself away in his room and Denise is preparing their new safe house for their arrival. The chances of Emma attacking them now are slim to none, but they cannot take the risk of it happening.

Everybody is occupied with something, meanwhile she has lost any sense of purpose and the last few days are finally catching up to her. Jessica is really pregnant, her mother and Rufus are both dead and Emma got away. The walls are closing in on her. The next safe house better not be underground. 

She'd like to say her feet carry her to his room on their own, but that's just not true. It's her own choice. One of the few she's still allowed to make, and it's all hers.

Lucy knocks at the door out of politeness though she doesn't wait for him to answer it and simply lets herself in, slipping through a small crack. He's standing with his back to her, looking over his shoulder directly at her. His right arm is still in the sling close to his body.

"Aren't you needed elsewhere?" he asks, his lips curling into something almost cruel. She knows his tells by now, even though she doesn't always know how to decode them.

"What?" Confusion spreads across the room coupled with the silence, but it clears soon enough.

"I am confident Wyatt would love your company."

He turns even farther away from her, rearranging books already in order arbitrarily. Anything as long as he doesn't have to face her it appears.

She will not lie to herself anymore, not when the only person she can fully trust is herself. So she admits in secret how much the brush-off hurts, before the anger takes over and ignites a fire as bright as the destruction of the Hindenburg.

This is her light bulb moment, an epiphany in the making.

"You heard it, didn't you." Lucy doesn't want to make it sound like an accusation, but it's so easy, too easy. Because he can handle her sharp tongue and the thorns growing from her words, even though it technically isn't fair to him.

He has lost everything as well.

He has given even more of himself in his quest for revenge, for justice in front of his own court.

But her soul needs to burn, it needs the clearing, the devastation and destruction. As long as Lucy burns she's alive still, there's still something left to be consumed.

Flynn bows his head, folds himself closer together, as he always does with her when the subject turns into uncharted territory. As if it would work, as if breaking eye contact with her would somehow miraculously render him invisible.

It doesn't.

"And now what? You're going to stop talking to me because of Wyatt? Because he said he loved me and I did nothing but react to getting the rug pulled from under my feet. Again."

If she weren't so desperately trying to hold it together, to retain some semblance of normality in the shitstorm that is her life, she'd scream. She'd scream and she'd howl, like a wounded animal, like a wolf caught in a metal trap.

Flynn takes a step towards her and she doesn't retreat.

She's still standing in the flames.

"Lucy."

Sometimes she hates him.

Not for any of his actions in the past, but simply for the way her name sounds upon his lips. Like a prayer. For putting his faith in her hands; trusting a woman she might never become to single-handedly write the plan to save the world and history. And she just --- can't.

Can't be bothered to care, to feel, to breathe, exist.

"My mother's dying wish was for me to inherit Rittenhouse and her one last regret was that she'd never see me sitting on the throne. And you-"

"Lucy, I'm -"

"Why are you _here_ , Flynn?"

Her voice breaks, caught between the anger and the sadness. She is not ashamed. Her eyes fill with tears and she lets them fall free.

She thinks she knows the answer, but she needs him to say it, to speak the words into existence. Only then they'll be indisputable truth. Thoughts caught in minds are one thing, but desire voiced in breath and soundwaves a whole other.

He comes closer, wrapping his arms around her. His height dwarfs her. Her face is safely tucked against his chest in just a single moment. She smell cheap soap and laundry detergent, mundane things. Flynn brings his mouth close to her ear, his stubble rasping along the sensitive skin of her cheek, her temple.

"For you."

Just like that it's over.

The last holdovers of fight leave in her body, the tension that has held her together and upright since she's stepped out of the Lifeboat into an uncertain future, it's gone and she just - breaks.

She'd known.

It's not a secret, whatever connection they have with each other. Something dark and twisted and blooming, shaped by time chasing each other and time spent together and _time_ , in general.

If he weren't holding her she'd be sliding on the floor and huddling in a corner against the wall.

"Lucy, you saved my life when you gave me this journal. I'd be dead, if it weren't for you," he says. Flynn gently tips up her chin with his hands and she can't look away. The look in his dark eyes is captivating, it speaks volumes. 

_What if he led you to me?_

"And I know - _I know_ \- it's too much for just one person. But I will return the favour, alright? I will save you too, in any way you need me to."

She nods, the salty taste of her tears on the tip of her tongue and she inappropriately thinks about the ocean and drowning in it. Lucy can accept the burden, but she cannot shoulder it alone, that much she knows. 

Maybe she doesn't have to. 

Maybe they get to hold each other above the surface. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm always nervous when diving into a new fandom, so please don't hesitate to tell me what you think. thank you for reading <3


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